


Subterranean Organisms

by NoLifePoints (Vesperbat)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperbat/pseuds/NoLifePoints
Summary: As Ryuuzaki awaits a train for his home town, he tries to discuss the future with Haga. But it’s hard discuss the future without discussing the past, and Haga welcomes neither.
Relationships: Dinosaur Ryuuzaki | Rex Raptor & Insector Haga | Weevil Underwood
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Subterranean Organisms

**Author's Note:**

> Done for shrimpship week, summer 2018. I know, I know, it's nothing remotely new. Just realized it never made it over here despite already having a title and summary and everything. :P

“There has to be a better way to do this,” said Ryuuzaki, staring into the empty wrapper of his vending machine sandwich. “Hey, you sure you don’t want something to-”

“I’ll pass,” said Haga, cutting him off with a raised hand. He could eat later. By himself.

“You could visit. I know a place with great noodles,” said Ryuuzaki, smiling an already defeated smile. Haga was not going to get on this train. Ryuuzaki gave him a doubtful glance, sizing him up. “And if you like, I don’t know, nature and shit…”

Haga ignored the suggestion. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve gone over it in my head again and again. It was a solid plan, and if I’d had something better-”

“‘Solid plan,’” said Ryuuzaki, snorting. “We were in over our heads.”

“So it was a last ditch effort.” Haga scowled. “You went along with it too, didn’t you? Did _you_ have anything better?”

“Nah. Just then, I’m pretty sure I would’ve gone along with anything.” Ryuuzaki stretched out languorously, lifting his feet from the stone floor. Haga didn’t like the way he smiled. “It just happened to be you.”

“Yeah, right,” said Haga, arms folded. “You needed me.”

“I needed somebody,” Ryuuzaki replied, and Haga’s chest tightened – but why did that, of all things, bother him? “Don’t try to tell me it was any different for you. Or maybe you forgot how desperate we were?”

Oh, he tried. Evading the question, Haga snapped, “That’s the kind of attitude that gets your ass kicked. Maybe it would have been fine if you put your money where your mouth was.”

Ryuuzaki’s leisurely indifference evaporated in an instant. He jumped up from the bench and tensed like he wanted a fight, then and there. The sandwich wrapper crumpled in his hand. “I wasn’t the only one who lost, was I?”

Haga stood so he could face Ryuuzaki eye to eye – even if he had to lean up on his toes to do it. “No, but I was willing to take risks you weren’t before it came to that. Always was!”

“Risks?” Ryuuzaki sneered. “Don’t tell me about risks. You could have died! Did you even stop to think about that?”

“So?”

“So?!”

Haga stared Ryuuzaki down like it was a contest, and maybe it was. “So what? What about you?”

“What about me?” Startled by the echo of his words in the chasm of station, Ryuuzaki flushed, dropping his voice to a near whisper. “I’m talking about you. What if?”

Haga sensed meaning beneath these words – a spider that lurked beneath the mouldering leaves. Despite building curiosity, Haga wasn’t sure he wanted to rouse this particular spider. With his feet firmly planted, he only shrugged.

Sighing, Ryuuzaki changed questions. “What are we going to do now, anyway?”

“Who said anything about ‘we’?” snarled Haga, though Ryuuzaki’s stricken face made him soften his frown and tamp the question down into something a little more civil. “What do you think ‘we’ should do?”

Even so, he knew this was not what Ryuuzaki wanted from him. Still, it was all he could do. When he thought it might not exist, it was easy to covet Ryuuzaki’s need – to resent the lack of it. It was much harder to offer himself up to it, now that it might be real.

“I don’t know,” said Ryuuzaki, and then then he said it again, softer than before. “I don’t know.”

Ryuuzaki wanted Haga to have the answer. He wanted someone else to tell him where to go. More startling to Haga was realizing that he wanted the same thing from Ryuuzaki. They remained silent for several minutes with set jaws and balled fists and feelings that slithered deep beneath rocks and buried themselves in the safety of the cool, dark mud they found there, far from the threat of capture.

You don’t always get what you want. If anyone understood that cliché, it was the two of them.

The soothing voice of the announcer signaled the train’s imminent arrival. Haga acted first, stepping toward the stairs that would return him to the surface. That world had its own risks, but at least he would be facing them alone. He could leave Ryuuzaki here, beneath the earth. Before he did, though, he paused, and said, “Let me know if you figure it out.” Part of him almost hoped that Ryuuzaki would.


End file.
